DeSantis said no one questioned slavery before Americans. See Van Jones react

CNN's Van Jones reacts to Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis saying no one questioned slavery until the American Revolution during an event discussing his "Stop Woke Act" which prohibits race-based conversation in schools in businesses.
#CNN #News

50 comments

  1. Even if he meant to say that no white people had opposed slavery until Americans did, he’s still wrong! All kinds of white Frenchmen were writing about the brutality of slavery long before America became an independent country.

  2. He said what he said. He didn’t count slaves questioning it , because to him and many others, slaves didn’t count

    1. @P L Then Ron is wrong. The British banned all slavery in 1807. WE can reasonably suppose they “questioned” it before then.

      Matter of fact one country – unwilling at that time to follow suit – went to war with them over the Royal Navy’s practice of stopping slave ships of all nations and releasing the slaves. I won’t name names.

    2. @Heart Of Darkness Britain banished slavery for political reasons NOT because they really thought it was wrong. Its not a coincidence that it happened soon after they lost US colonies + massive slave rebellions in Haiti, Dominican, etc in 1790s… not to mention the French Revolution. US is the only country to eliminate slavery on the grounds of it being immoral & through a massive civil war.

    3. He also doesn’t get how the institution of slavery perverted Christianity and Family Values he claims to care about. Given the generations of slave owners who perpetutated this, it begins to appear that they had morality and Christian principles bred out of them, even at the biological level. That kind of power corrupts moral reasoning and critical thinking for the enslavers, as well as the obscenity perpetrated on living human beings. The Golden Rule means NOTHING to these people.

    4. @P L That’s US mythos.
      The US wasn’t the first govt to “question slavery.” You are just falling for the American Exceptionalism mythos that is taught instead of the fact that we love to put Equality, Freedom, Liberty on top of a pillar to worship it and then decide who gets to have them. That was baked in from the start.
      Other countries and cultures were against slavery long before the US. Slavery in the US became far, far worse than slavery in many other cultures and was abolished fairly recently.

  3. DeSantis talking about history is proof Florida needs a better education system to teach *actual* history. πŸ˜‚

    1. @jeff Rodgers so what do you stand for bro? Give me one constructive thing besides Jesus or owning the libs. I’ll be impressed

    2. @jeff Rodgers wow….did you proofread your response before posting?….not surprised. Remember, MAGA loves the poorly educated

    3. @Susan Reed Wall Street has always been the stock market. Wall street was the market and slaves were the first stock.

  4. I grew up in a household where racial bias was a constant diatribe. Fortunately, I heard a different point of view in school. Even as a young child, I felt that bigotry was wrong no matter what my parents said. Children aren’t stupid, but when they only hear one viewpoint, they question their own inner voice. If real history isn’t taught, history will be repeated, unfortunately.

    1. Deathsantis cannot have people more educated than he is, so he banned topics he doesn’t like or chose not to educate himself about.

    2. @Zaza Tv He and tRump seem to be in a race to see who can be the biggest fool. The even scarier part is the people standing behind them.

  5. Amazing how every one of people in my generation (Boomers) managed to live productive law abiding lives ( with the exception of Trump and some of his ilk) without worrying about Critical Race Theory, knew that limits helped children learn right from wrong, and managed to never be arrested in our lives. Granted, l lived in the west, and we were ignorant of many problems. When we learned, we rebelled. I was at U.C., Berkeley when the Free Soeech Movement took place. It was a learning experience for me. I saw gross bigotry for the 1st time in my formerly sheltered life. My education outside the classroom was as great as the one inside. I was enriched as a person, and l hope l have enriched others. At age 78, l am still sharing my knowledge. To those who are far younger than l am, if you have a fixed mind that is not open to new ideas, you are cheating yourselves. You are also probably Republicans, who are now close minded, not open to knew ideas, and have a need to control for dear you will be discovered. You probably already have been.

  6. Van Jones never disappoints… “I understand, he (DeSantis) is concerned that there are some people here who are anti-America” He loves to give cover to the right-wingers

  7. I had a Jehovah’s Witness in my elementary school growing up and she never did the pledge of allegiance. The teachers never made her as they respected her family’s choice. Although, the kids treated her poorly for being different.

  8. He clearly meant that no one questions it that could change it. Mr. Don knew this but there would be less talking points if he pointed out this OBVIOUS line.

  9. Canada passed its first Act Against Slavery in 1793. Within a few years, every colony that would eventually become the Confederation of Canada had abolished slavery. This was because the overwhelming majority of Canadians, whether First Nations, French-speaking, or English-speaking, strongly opposed slavery on moral grounds. Canadian courts ruled that any slave who escaped from the United States became fully and unconditionally free at the very second that they set one foot on Canadian soil. This is what the “underground railway” was all about, and for generations slaves who escaped from the United States came to our land, farming its soil, working and studying, becoming merchants, tradesmen, doctors, lawyers and soldiers. The most respected politician in Toronto, who served the city for many years from the late 19th century into the 20th, and who transformed it from a small frontier town to a technologically advanced city, was the son of escaped slaves smuggled into Canada. Like all American Conservatives, Ron DeSantis is a pathetic ignoramus with no knowledge of history, even the history of his own country. There has to be something seriously wrong with the American educational system if a bubble-brained nincompoop like Ron DeSantis can be elected to public office.

  10. I don’t really know everything being taught in schools right now, my daughter, who’s an adult now had told me it changed so much since I was in school. I remember history being an important part of it. You can’t change it by just ignoring or not talking about it!

    1. Maybe he should find out through lived experience. He is a FASCIST but also a pathological narcissist. It’s a mental infection.

  11. Interesting conversation. We need more of this now. What’s the difference between endoctrination and education? And of course topics should be adapted to the age of the students. Above all everyone needs to use critical thinking and have empathy for the experience of others.

    1. I think the idea that schools are inappropriately teaching about gender and sexual issues as Republicans suggest, at an early age is ridiculous. Then there’s that ludicrous word they LOVE to repeat: “groom”. Implying that personnel in schools are predominantly perverts. It’s insulting and says more about those who are spreading false rumors than the largely hardworking, low-paying, underappreciated and slandered teachers.

    2. ‘What’s the difference between endoctrination and education?’ Education is facts and knowledge. Indoctrination is being told such and such without challenge or the data to support it.

  12. I was taught about WW2 and the horrors of the Holocaust at the age of 8.
    This at school by a teacher who lived the war, luckily in Switzerland.

  13. Irish history was sadly lacking from the history curriculum here in the UK. I learnt about the troubles from people who lived it, on either side of the divide!!

  14. I remember Van tearing up when Biden won in 2020, i was feeling the same, and that moment stood by me for a long time, and here we are Van standing against THE EXACT SAME ideology we stood at the time vs Trump: they have not evolved.
    Thank U, Sir
    At Your Service πŸ’―πŸ’―

  15. You know what is so weird to hear from Desantis, talking about slavery.

    Is that he would definitely have been a Slave owner, and would have defended his rights to own slaves with an insane argument.

    Desantis is one of the most despicable and horrible human to have ever lived in America.

  16. I’m always amused by NON-teachers talking about what should happen in a classroom (especially a high school classroom) when it’s clear they have absolutely NO idea what it takes to keep a group of intelligent, curious near-adults focused. Privacy in a high school setting is not always possible during a β€œhot moment” in class and ignoring issues can spiral into complete chaos. Put Mr. Jennings in a high school classroom for 15 minutes and the students would have a shark feed on him. πŸ˜…πŸ€£πŸ˜‚

    1. Thanks for pointing this out. As a retired teacher, who wrote curricula for a variety of courses, I have a hard time listening to people making life harder for students and teachers. Fear-mongering and misinformation is turning parents, who, in the quest to prepare students to be informed citizens, should be our strongest partners and allies, into adversaries. We don’t indoctrinate kids, in part because what we really want is for those kids to be the best version of themselves, not another version of the teacher. Do we always see eye to eye with parents? No. But we happily work with them to understand their values and perspectives so that we can still achieve the educational outcomes needed for the student to succeed. If more people understood the education, training, testing, workload, etc. currently required of teachers, I suspect that less of them would be either attacking teachers or feeling OK with using random untrained ex-military members. I’m from a family of both teachers and military, but those trainings, motivations, and preparation are not equally appropriate for a classroom.

  17. “What’s dangerous is, when you don’t let kids talk about the world around them, you give them no prompt and no cues” this hit home. Parents, don’t shield your kids from the world, please

    1. Something I would add to your comment is, when you don’t allow kids to talk about these things, and you give them no prompt or cue, that silence IS the prompt or cue.

  18. “At some point Republicans decided that making the country like the town in the movie Footloose was a political winner” – 🀣🀣🀣

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